The black glass raised stone road was eighty feet wide. Its polished fiery flags reflected the glowing violet sea like an endless ribbon of polished coal suspended above a burning sky.
As Ren Vale walked beside Master Ren, the heat of the underground lake pressed against his face. A moist, stone warmth that carried the scent of ozone, lightning, and ancient copper. On either side of the raised stone road, the stone salt water bubbled in slow, thick, sticky eddies. It glowed with the soft glow of dissolved starlight. Floating across the surface were crusts of raw amethyst and smoky quartz. He drifted like crystal-clear icebergs in the violet tide, their many-sided edges refracting the underground glare into prismatic fractals against the cave walls.
The air itself was charged with heavy live spark charge. Tiny, dancing filaments of violet static leapt between the black glass flags and the iron nails in Ren’s boots, making his hair stand on end and coating his lips with the sweet, metal taste of spark-charged copper.
Ahead of them, rising from the center of the lake, the huge ribs of the Astral Titan loomed like an iron-banded mountain.
To stand before it was to understand the sheer, terrifying arrogance of the First High court.
